Footprint of an Email

When I opened the weekly Monday morning CBSM/Fostering Sustainable Behavior email with nothing but null messages ("No New Threads") it occurred to me that this is a great reminder about why it's always much easier to think about changing the behavior of other people than it is to change our own.

For example, the resources required to send an email all over the world are not tracked or billed in any way, so there's no incentive to choose software that would not send null messages.

I've seen huge estimates for the internet's energy draw, and Google recently opened a huge server installation near some hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to tap into cheap power because they use so much.

Does anyone have a good estimate of how much energy one commits (in mail servers) when you send an email to a single person? To a list?

It would be cool if there were a gadget that was on everyone's cell phones and computers that monitored the number of addressees on mail sent out from that device and showed you how much energy you had caused to be used.

John Gear
United States
http://lovesalem.blogspot.com/